Memory
by Ryah Ignis
Summary: Rose Tyler has a right to know about the Time War after the incident in Van Sattan's bunker. The Doctor just hopes she doesn't think less of him afterwards. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the show. Happy birthday, raggedy man!


**Memory**

**Summary: Post-'Dalek', Rose decides that it's her right to know what exactly that creature in Van Satten's bunker was. Friendship piece.**

**Warnings: Probably AU since I'm not very far along in the series.**

No matter what he did, he couldn't get comfortable. He must have shifted in his seat a hundred times over the last hour, but nothing felt right. Sleep was not an option. He'd always gotten nightmares, but tonight…instead, he just sat on his bed and tried not to think.

Eight lives before this, and the Doctor had never felt sicker. He wasn't sure what had brought the twisting of his stomach about. Maybe it was the way that he'd run from his greatest enemy and begged to be let out of the cage. Maybe it was Van Satten's 'scan' which would have left a lesser person trembling. Maybe it was the way that Rose had looked at him as he aimed the gun at the Dalek with her in the way.

Oh, who was he kidding? Nine hundred years of police box travel, nearly a thousand planets, dozens of alternate universes, but somehow the disapproval of a nineteen-year-old girl from 2005 made him more worried than the reappearance of a species he thought long dead. That he thought he'd destroyed.

He stared around his room absentmindedly, looking for something to reorganize, something to fiddle with, anything that could take his mind off it all. Unfortunately, unlike his predecessors, he preferred his room stripped of anything but the barest necessities. His past versions would have thought him crazy. One had painted the room neon green. Another had drawn a completely labeled map of the Milky Way (in the year 6789 by human reckoning) for the fun of it on the wall. Still another had a stuffed giraffe nearly as tall as he was in the corner. It had taken him two-hundred and seventy-four tries to win.

His current regeneration, however, had no use for bright colors, maps or stuffed giraffes. So instead of tidying an already polished room, he stared at the stark white wall in front of him, trying to wipe his mind as cleanly as the blank paint.

"Doctor?"

He stiffened slightly. He hadn't even heard the door open. No doubt the TARDIS had made it easier for Rose to slip in undetected. He shot a mental jibe at his machine, who responded with a gentle humming noise he took to be amusement.

The sight of her, usually enough to make him smile, made both of his hearts clench. He'd nearly lost her down in that bunker, and all because he hadn't told her about the Time War, about the Daleks. Still, he patted the bed next to him. She smiled and took her seat, the tops of her fingers brushing his.

"What was that?" she asked.

"A Dalek," he said quickly, not wanting to go into that particular topic just yet. "How's Adam settling in?"

Rose raised her eyebrows a little. She knew him well enough to know that he couldn't care less how Adam was doing.

"I know what it's called," she said, "but what is—was—it?"

"A Dalek," he said, spitting the word out as if it was a curse, which for him, it was. Even in English, the word itself was enough to plunge him into the darkest days of all his nine lives.

She sat in patient silence, waiting for a better explanation. The Doctor chanced a sideways glance at the girl beside him, who could never even hope to live long enough to see a tenth of what he had. She deserved an explanation. It had nearly killed her. Somehow, she voiced his thoughts.

"It nearly killed me. Would've done it, too, if it hadn't—"

"Used your DNA to regenerate, yeah."

That made him sicker still. A Dalek, a _Dalek_, one of his bitterest enemies had taken part of Rose, _his _Rose and used her, preying on her compassion.

She shifted closer to him, putting her hand firmly over his. He worked his jaw, trying to find the words to describe Daleks, the Time War, and his part in it.

"Daleks," he said, forcing each word out, "are genetically engineered. Every emotion was removed but hate."

Hopefully that was all the information that she would need, but he'd chosen Rose Tyler for a reason. She asked questions, the right questions, to figure out what she needed to.

"Who would do that?"

His face twisted. That was not a question he was willing to answer, not yet. She didn't press the issue.

"There was a war. The Last Great Time War, they called it. 'Course, there's no one left to call it that."

The hand that was not trapped beneath Rose's clenched into a fist, the nails digging into his palms.

"It was between the Daleks and my people, the Time Lords. My people were obsessed with the proper order of the universe. The Daleks…well, not so much."

Rose stared at him, completely immersed. He summoned every ounce of his courage and continued to talk.

"A Time War is difficult to fight and even harder to catalogue and leave for future generations to study," he said with a wry smile. No future generation for this war. "Every fixed moment in time must be kept perfectly in balance. You can't change history, and the Daleks used that to their advantage. We were on damage control as much as we were fighting."

Rose was beginning to look a little lost, so he cut to the chase.

"Best I could tell, things were going all right but I was probably wrong. You never know how many troops you have, and the size of it all is so difficult for a single general to control. Imagine, for a moment, an entire planet used for a battlefield. Then imagine hundred just like it. Absolute chaos, completely mindboggling, even for a Time Lord. Things changed, got worse. The scales tipped in the wrong direction. You wouldn't believe the casualties, Rose."

He'd hoped that by saying her name, he'd be dragged out of the memories but he just kept getting pulled deeper and deeper until all he could smell and taste and hear was the battle. Thankfully, the TARDIS helped him create a mental block against the sight memories.

"I was injured in the fighting,' he said, not explaining how he'd died and regenerated. There'd be time for that explanation later. "I was unconscious in the TARDIS for a while. When I woke up again, there was no hope for the universe unless…I did the only thing I could. Exterminate."

As always, the word was enough to send a shudder down his spine. He closed his eyes against the lurch of both his hearts. There was a sharp intake of breath from Rose, but no other reaction.

"The Daleks died," he said bitterly, eyes still closed. "They took the Time Lords with them. My planet, burning. My people, screaming. And then there was silence. It was so quiet, Rose. I reached out…it was so empty."

He waited for her to get up, take Adam with her, get off at the next stop and never look back.

"You..?"

He could only nod. She was traveling with a man who had so much blood on his hands that he was almost drowning in it.

"Oh, Doctor."

She buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. He froze. He'd imagined a thousand different scenarios, but this had not been one of them. He was the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, most certainly not someone to be pitied.

"So that's it, then. I win. King of the Hill."

The words he didn't say hung in the air. _What if there are more? What if I'm not the last survivor? What if it wasn't worth it?_

"It's not your fault."

He shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't let go. Getting no response, she tried again.

"What was it called?" she asked after the long, drawn out silence became tangible. "Your planet?"

"Gallifrey."

The TARDIS hummed in his mind, attempting to fill the gaping void that should have been filled with the chatter of his kind.

"Gallifrey," she said, trying out the taste on her tongue.

It sounded wrong in her all-too-human voice, but at the same time, it fit her perfectly.

"What was it like?"

He found himself describing beautiful yellow flowers that sprang up for no reason in the dead of winter, banana groves practically exploding with life, the freshest strawberries that he'd ever tasted, and sunsets that gleamed as if an artist had painted it on fresh that morning and left the paint still wet. He told folk tales and chuckled at jokes she only understood when he explained the punch line. He described famous paintings long turned to ash, down to the minutest details. He promised to read his favorite childhood book to her. He kept talking until his voice was hoarse and she was nearly asleep in his lap.

"And to think I spent nearly all of my life running from it," he finished.

Irony was such a human concept, but it fit the situation perfectly.

"It sounds beautiful," Rose mumbled, shifting her head to look up at him.

"You should have seen it."

She finally succumbed to sleep a moment later. He loosened her hold on his neck and set her gently on the bed. It took a little struggle, but he managed to get the sheets out from under her without waking her. The TARDIS hummed in amusement as he covered her up and headed for the control room. He left his too-bright companion in his too-empty room, memories of Gallifrey playing in his mind.


End file.
